DM questions...

[KandJinIN]

Hello there all, I have multiple questions all related to an upcoming campaign that I am DMing. I have DMed briefly a few times, nothing major, so this will be relatively a new experience for me. I have my story line written out, hopefully have picked up some tips that will make the gaming experience a bit more streamlined. All that being said, I have a few questions.

One is purely mechanical, the other is more your general view of DMing...

I have a player who wants to play a werewolf template'd PC. Nothing wrong with this as long as they can give me a backstory that has a decent attempt at explaining this illness. He is going monk/sorcerer so he can prestige into the enlightened fist PrC. That all being said, one of the requirements is 8 ranks concentration. Class levels, he will have 4 with the +3 level adjustment. However, the Werewolf template gives 2 + int in skills, so does the template HD count towards the levels for the max ranks in skills? If he were to find a feat that gave him a +2 on all concentration checks.. that is actually a bonus, not two additional ranks above the maximum correct?

Second question is simply this... how much effort do you put into the enemies in your campaign. I plan on using basic stock monsters and such from MM for the mundane fights. But for the BBEG, or even the smaller boss fights that would end a section of the campaign... do you look at trying to optimize them and power playing them up a bit? Just curious.

Thanks

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

1) Yes, the werewolf HD add to the maximum ranks allowed for a skill. And no, any bonuses to a skill from a feat or elsewhere, are not the same as ranks in the skill. Only skill points spent on the skill are ranks for the purposes of meeting requirements.

2) It can vary, really depends on you. I enjoy statting out NPCs like they're PC's and spending hours optimizing them and thinking of how they would fight, what tactics they would use. So my games tend to have pretty darn good fights, and rather extensive ones, to pat myself on the back for that. But...I'm horrible at thinking of plot ideas, adventures, and even dungeon layouts. So I play to my stengths, and while I try to include roleplaying and interaction, and the occasional planned out dungeon with pre-planned interconnecting routes and secret areas...the majority of my games are combat slugfests. If you're not good at that stuff, but can actually design a town layout and think of cool ideas for intrigue and mysteries for the players to investigate, and can be quick on your feat to handle curveballs the players throw at you (and they definitely will), then you cold do just as well running a game vastly different from how mine go.

 

[udalrich]

With respect to skill points, racial hit dice are just like class levels. So if he has 2 racial hit dice and 3 class levels, the maximum number of ranks he could have in a class skill is 2+3+3=8.

As you appear to have figured out, a feat that gives a bonus to a skill doesn't help qualify for a class with a prereq on N ranks, since its a bonus, not actual ranks.

For the enemies, some are stock monsters, but others are custom built NPCs or advanced/templated monsters. However, I do enjoy building characters/monsters, so I probably put more effort into that than is advisable for the average person. Advanced monsters can also provide a plot hook: when the party is in a normal wilderness area and used to encountering nothing more exotic than a Manticore, but are attacked one night by half-fiendish spiders, it can set them to wondering where the spiders came from.